


Death Doesn't Discriminate (Between the Sinners and the Saints)

by EthelPhantom



Series: Ethel's Daminette December 2019 [7]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst and Tragedy, Character Death, F/M, Gen, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:53:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21778612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EthelPhantom/pseuds/EthelPhantom
Summary: "Officially, I won, but is it truly so? Look at what it brought me!"Daminette December 2019, day 13: Death
Relationships: Chloé Bourgeois & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Kagami Tsurugi, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug/Damian Wayne
Series: Ethel's Daminette December 2019 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1559191
Comments: 31
Kudos: 184
Collections: Damian Wayne / Marinette Dupain-Cheng





	Death Doesn't Discriminate (Between the Sinners and the Saints)

**Author's Note:**

> If this is the first fandom you read fics from me, you might not know that I am, in fact, not a fluff writer. I am an angst writer, and my angst is almost never light. You might've gotten a taste from it from my prompt fill for the 9th day, soulmates. My expertise is grief and loss and, you guessed it, _death _. Oh, and insanity. This... is probably what you should expect from me for the next few writing prompt fills... Oops?__
> 
> __So yeah. Death. And grief. And brief implications of losing one's mind. Please mind the warnings. The death's aren't graphic, nor is the descriptions of corpses, but like, both are still somewhat described so it might be disturbing to someone? Please be careful. Love you all!_ _

The freezing wind played with her hair as she felt like the skin of her face was going to break in the cold. The tears that flowed down her face froze as soon as they left her eyes, but Marinette couldn’t bring herself to care. Yet another day in their ruined paradise had passed by, but she didn’t know what to make of it because said paradise that she had loved, no matter how cruel and ruined it was, had now come to an end.

The butterfly brooch in a tight grip was close to breaking, so hard she was squeezing it. It didn’t matter. Why would it matter if it broke? It was the fault of its wielder they were here now anyway. She blamed  _ everything _ on those who had wrongly taken Miraculouses and used them for their own gain, because of their own greed.

Ryuko placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it gently. “Look at the bright side. We won, we finally won. You got the brooch, Agreste and Sancoeur are on their way to prison. The war you’ve been fighting for years has finally come to an end.  _ You won _ ”, she said and gave her a small  ~~_ sad _ ~~ smile. Her eyes betrayed her emotions though — she was devastated. It was in no way surprising, they had just had to watch too many of their comrades die — and even Ladybug’s Miraculous Cure wasn’t strong enough to bring them back. No. 

She should’ve remembered. Nothing could bring the dead back to life. 

She should’ve taken better care of them. 

They had won through the loss of countless innocent lives — their victory had been secured by countless tragic demises. It was all their fault. 

“I… Won?”

The bracelet of the turtle laid upon the snow, and its wielder was detransformed,  _ dead _ on the ground for all the world to see. Walking past him, Marinette picked up the Miraculous and bowed to her fallen comrade, to her former friend. His shield had not been strong enough to protect him from Hawkmoth’s sword.

The corpse of the one who was supposed to manipulate time and give them a second chance was leaning against a tree, his blood having already turned the white snow under him a glaring red. Marinette knelt next to him, squeezed his fingers and took off the miraculous. It revealed a young man with blue hair, one of the few to stand beside her through thick and thin in both her civilian life and behind the glamour of the Miraculous. One last time she brought her hand to her heart and paid her respects to her dear friend. Even he couldn’t give himself — or any of them — one last second chance. 

The fox, their illusionist, had fallen for illusions and mirages, visions of something better and a future filled with hope. Her life had ended as she fell to her death from the top of the Eiffel Tower, and with no miraculous to save her as it had dangled in Mayura’s tight grip, she had broken her skull as she hit the cold ground. She had been the first one they lost. Her miraculous Marinette had retrieved as she defeated Mayura, who was now missing her eyes. The peacock’s gleeful smile had turned to a horrified, soundless scream as she realised what was to come. 

Never again would Mayura or Nathalie Sancoeur be able to fight or perform her duties as she once had.

Oh, and Chat Noir. Her sweet kitten. He’d fallen victim to his own mind, cruelly executed by those he once called family. Years of manipulation and conditioning to become the perfect tool for his so-called family to use, he’d been forced to try and kill her with his cataclysm — only, Agreste and Sancoeur hadn’t realised he would never kill his lady and instead forced his hand to touch himself. The last thing Marinette could remember of him were his teary eyes and the broken smile, along with a sorrowful whisper of “Farewell, M’Lady, make sure you avenge all of us. Make sure you bring them in front of cruel justice, or bring it upon them yourself. Don’t let anyone else die after me.” 

As a miraculous could hardly be destroyed, she had picked up the silvery ring from the ashes and murmured her apologies to both her lost kitten and Plagg, who had once again had to watch his holder get their life stolen from them. She could barely come to terms with the deaths of her friends and comrades, but even considering how horrible it must have been to Plagg to lose holders times and times again was so much worse. 

And for his death, she’d taken away the use of Gabriel Agreste’s hands. He would never be able to use them again, regardless of what anyone tried. She’d made sure of it.

But even though she's promised to fulfill her kitten's last wish, she’d failed him, as there had still been one more death after his. One death that she could not accept. 

She was the Great Guardian of the Miraculouses. She was  _ The Ladybug _ . She was meant to protect her team, she was meant to ensure they stayed safe. She couldn’t fail, she couldn’t lose a battle, let alone the war, because if she did, it would be immediate  _ Game Over,  _ not only to every single miraculous wielder, but also everyone else that might be unfortunate enough to be in the vicinity of a miraculous that had fallen into the wrong hands. That was all there was to it. Even if everything else was lost, she would still need to be standing and ready to fight — and fight she had. 

But, even though she’d technically won, why did it feel like she’d instead lost her everything? Why did she feel like she hadn’t done her job well enough?

All these young lives had ended way too soon, but there was nothing she could do about it. Marinette walked in the snow that was stained by unforgiving crimson, leaving behind dirtied footprints. Once upon a time she might have been disgusted and horrified at the sight of all this, but now she was merely empty. Numb.

Except that she wasn’t. There was one that made sure she couldn’t be numb, one whose death hit her the hardest. 

She fell on her knees next to the corpse of someone who was dressed in red, black, yellow and green. A chuckle void of happiness escaped her lips. Even in death she couldn’t forget about how atrocious that suit was, how that someone looked like the personification of a traffic light. 

At last, unable to hold herself with pride like the “victorious” Ladybug she was supposed to be should, she buried her face to the chest of her beloved and sobbed, the one person she hadn’t been prepared to lose. She’d long ago accepted she might lose her teammates, either to death or something else, but she had never come to think she might have to see a day when her love would be ripped away from her hands. Marinette had never wanted to bid adieu to any of them, but this one? This goodbye she never even got to say was _devastating_. 

There were ways to bring him back — after all, that had already been done to him once — but Marinette couldn’t bring herself to even consider letting something corrupt her love so thoroughly again. Besides, she needed to get rid of the Lazarus pit once and for all with the aid of Tikki and Plagg, that she knew. She had promised it to the few who had suffered from it, she had promised it to all the kwamii. She couldn’t leave such thing in existence now that she had finally defeated the danger that had loomed over Paris and the entire world in a way for years now, thus preventing her from going and ridding the world of the curses left behind by the gods that became the kwamii a long time ago. 

Her hands became stained by Damian’s warm blood (it was the only warmth she could feel in this endless, merciless cold) as she held him close and wept, though in a much different way than Gabriel Agreste’s or Nathalie Sancoeur’s. Their hands were stained in sin along with the blood of so many, hers was for trying to tell them goodbye. 

She was bitter, she was angry, she was furious. She was  _ vindictive _ . 

But, as the one who was supposed to represent creation itself, she could do nothing about it. She would stay quiet and grieve in the depths of her soul where a part of her would always be missing, lost to the eternity of agony and time. 

At least she had a body — a corpse — to bury. She hadn’t been given such luxury with some of the others. At least she could bid her last farewell to the one for whom she would have given up anything. 

Marinette had the power to destroy and create anything she wanted, but there was no way she could bring her lost teammates and her lost love back to life. They wouldn’t be happy with her for destroying the balance of the world for it, and so she kept to her pain. She simply clutched Robin's — her beloved Damian's — hand in her own, trying to get the last bits of his warmth to herself, hoping for them to bring her comfort. She was nowhere near ready to let go.

Abeille — the former Queen Bee, the reformed Chloé — walked up to her and lifted her up even as she tried to resist and stay with her love. Marinette struggled as she tried to get back to the one she would have given her entire being to if he had asked, but when Chloé still wouldn’t let go, she surrendered to her fate and let herself go limp. 

“Honeybug, please. You can’t do this to yourself. I know this is difficult and painful — it is that for me too —, but you need to remember we won. You won. You don’t need to suffer anymore”, she told Marinette with feigned confidence, but it was clear that in reality she had no idea what to say.

Marinette sneered and looked up and the dark, gloomy sky as snow flakes floated down and melted on her face. “I don’t… need to suffer anymore…? Beil, what are you talking about? I lost the most on this day. Officially, I won, but is it truly so? Look at what it brought me!”

She could no longer keep her composure as she screamed her heart out, unable to care about what potential witnesses thought of her. It didn’t matter, _they_ _didn’t matter._ Marinette threw her hands to her sides and shook her head, her entire body trembling. “Yes, I won, but at what cost?! _I lost everything and everyone I ever fought for_ _!_ ”

Abeille flinched back at her hysterical voice, but she couldn’t leave because she could see how devastated Marinette was, how horrified she was, yet how emptiness ate her alive from inside and made her numb. It was clear to her and Ryuko, Marinette’s closest living friends, that if they left now, there would be something bigger than a piece of her heart and soul that would break and shatter into a million fragments. They knew she would  _ lose it _ . 

And so, they both stayed by her side, throughout the numb and bitter apologies to her beloved’s father even as he tried to reassure her it wasn’t her fault (he did blame her, but he also knew she blamed herself enough for the both of them and even the rest of his family, so deep he knew her guilt was). They stood by her side as she brought the existence of the Lazarus pit to its end. They held her close as they buried their lost teammates and friends together, refusing any help from outside parties — after all, it was _their_ duty to let their dead to finally rest. They founded the new order of the Guardians hand in hand, dedicating one room to those miraculous wielders who had been on their side and lost their lives, and another to the one whose existence and life would have kept their Great Guardian who was too young for all of this from losing her sanity. 

And, when the day came when both Abeille and Ryuko had to say goodbye to this world? 

Well, that was the day Marinette Dupain-Cheng lost her mind and, bitter at the entire world and existence, started to consider bringing all of existence to an end so she could once more reunite with her friends and her love. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this! I'd be happy to hear what you thought of this. If it's just to scream at me for killing everyone and hurting Mari, feel free to simply scream at me. 
> 
> Do come scream at me on my [tumblr](https://ethelphantom.tumblr.com/) if you want to!


End file.
